Apparently the right to call oneself a “farmer” is being called into question.

In a frank post, titled “Yo, Farmer Dude,” Katherine Dalton writes that the term “farmer” shouldn’t be diluted by those who garden or putter or plant edible landscape or run social justice projects masquerading as urban farms.

I understand what she’s saying. Words have power. Perhaps overusing the term “farmer” diminishes a status earned through grueling and often thankless tasks. That term, however, hasn’t always been eagerly sought out. Other words associated with “farmer” include “hayseed,” “bumpkin,” “yokel,” “hick,” “peasant,” and “rube.” Quite a few of my elders were raised on farms but, once they found occupations in far flung cities, never admitted their hardscrabble beginnings to their more sophisticated friends and neighbors. It was, to many previous generations, an embarrassment. The effort to gain social status meant getting as much distance as possible from dirt, manure, and sweat.

Shake anyone’s family tree and you’re likely to find farmers a short way down most branches. Those farms often fed no more than their own families, but our farming ancestors were remarkably self-reliant in ways now lost to us. The average person possessed an extraordinary range of skills in order to keep tools and implements in good repair; harnesses and wagons in working order; livestock healthy and productive; family members clothed and cared for from birth to death; food planted, harvested, and stored. It’s more than a crying shame that the average person’s life skills come to a sudden halt with the loss of electricity. Or a lack of fossil fuel. Or a sudden drop in Wi Fi connectivity.

Yet Dalton insists the word “farming” must be predicated on skill, hard work, and truly putting one’s equity at risk. She says the bar is held pretty high in farming communities. As an example, she writes,

“Years ago my friend “Dan,” who has farmed all his life, including running a dairy as a teenager and raising tobacco, took on a second job of selling real estate in order to bring in some extra income. Everybody knows what you’re doing in a small town, and it wasn’t long before some neighbor at the coffee shop twitted him about being a realtor and not a farmer anymore.

It was an unfair remark, but it showed how country people feel about anyone they can accuse of lack of seriousness. To call yourself a farmer without having earned the title is, in this small community at least (and I suspect in many others), not done…Rural people don’t appreciate the pretentions of those who want to wear the mantle of Berrylike back-to-the-landedness without sweating for it—physically and financially.”

Hmm. Every farmer in my extended family either works outside the home full time, or has a spouse who does so. Farming is a risky business based on the whims of banking institutions, increasingly erratic weather, and highly volatile market conditions. Farming, particularly for the youngest generation, is often impossible to live on as a full-time occupation due to the price of land. This excerpt from Dalton’s post indicates, to me, the nonsense of predicating one’s identity on what the neighbors think. Besides, it’s a mite dangerous to constrict our behavior to what meets with approval in small towns. If that were the case, our political and cultural views might also fall into some narrowed categories.

Although words have power, they are diluted constantly. It would be great if significant words weren’t already used in ways that make a mockery of their meaning (diapers named Luv, cars named Karma, wars named Enduring Freedom). We live in a society where word associations are watered down to meaninglessness by marketers and PR spin. What words could I use to describe muffins I make by grinding grain, beating it into eggs from our chickens, milk from our cows, and herbs I dried myself? Terms like “fresh” or “home made” are splattered across clamshell plastic containers of muffins recently unpacked at our market and allowed to defrost before being displayed.

I’m guessing professional golfers don’t look askance at weekend putters who call themselves golfers any more than the men and women who make their living as farmers really care much if homesteaders down the road or cousins in the city call themselves farmers too.

At least we can choose the words we use to define ourselves. Well, at least around people who don’t call us to account for how much risk and hard work we put into those self-definitions. And maybe that risk is more than financial. I have dear friends who devote their lives to perfecting a craft. They act, compose, weave, paint, weld, invent, write, sing, and throw pots. They are driven to continually refine what it means to create. Yet most of them spend their days at jobs that are unrelated in order to survive. They wait tables or work in accounts receivable. Their real gifts emerge during precious hours plucked from mundane obligations. It’s quite possible to attend a production at a local playhouse and see performances that shift the way you experience the world. You walk out a changed person for the extraordinary art you have enjoyed. Chances are that director, those actors, that playwright are unable to support themselves with their work, vital though it is. I hope they define themselves by their art more than they do by their day jobs. I feel the same way about those who farm, on whatever scale. They’re putting passion into action.

People who farm, even if harvesting enough to feed only their families, are at the cutting edge of a new revolution. Daily experience helps them understand more directly the perfect intersection of water, soil, and sunlight necessary to create food. They’re more likely to support not only farmer’s markets but also candidates and policies that make sustainable agriculture more possible. They create wealth in deeper connections. And many of them feed more people each year, just as small farms did for all the generations before us. That’s why I disagree with Dalton’s point that “you will do more for American farming by patronizing your local farmers’ market regularly than by any personal effort at ‘urban farming.’”

Instead of quibbling over naming rights, let’s draw a wider circle, one that embraces community gardeners, backyard chicken raisers, hobby farmers, homesteaders, conventional as well as organic farmers. They’re working the land they have, the best they know how. A wider circle acknowledges we’re making a better future one passionate grower at a time. That makes a difference.

8 Responses to Who Should Be Called A “Farmer?”

Laura, your eloquence touches me, your thoughts provoke more thinking and feeling, and I am happy to say that, while I understand Dalton’s “righteous indignation,” ( because farming is such hard work and has been so often denigrated), I agree that we put such aside and draw that larger circle. Anything that connects any of us back to our roots and our beloved Earth in any way, even growing lettuce in a container and enjoying the wonder of watching it grow, and the amazing taste of “fresh,” is a GOOD THING! And let’s remind ourselves that labels are just indicators, helpful way-pointers. As a daughter of farmers, and a grower of more and more of my own food, I am thrilled that the term “farmer” has become of interest to that widening circle.

Thirty five years ago I was driving home with a couple of bales of hay for my backyard horse and I told my then ( now ex) husband that I wanted tobe a farmer. Just the smell of the hay confined in that SUV made me dizzy with joy. My relatives were all farmers but abandoned farming in mid life to pursue other careers. So now , for almost 35 years I have lived on my farm with my dairy goats, horses, pigs and now sheep and chickens. Some people still think I am eccentric and maybe I am but it suits me just fine. it’s a lot of work but also very beautiful. Life without beauty is a mistake/

I have just over 1/4 acre, all we could afford when we made our mortgage commitment. On this 1/4 acre we fulfill 75% of our vegetable needs for a year, as well as about 60% of our herb needs; when I get more ‘exotic’ bushes growing we will fulfill close to 90% of our herb/spice needs. We have fruit trees (that haven’t fruited yet) but we also have local plums, grapes, and apricots, free for the picking, that fulfill much of our jelly and jam needs for a year. My chickens eat about 40% of their calories from what we grow too. We used to have rabbits as well, they were kept for fiber and for their manure – necessary for the garden. I still have plenty of room to grow more, it’s just a matter of prepping the soil and making the time.

We do shop locally; our meats come from local farms and ranches and in many cases we know the animal we are eating; we saw it from birth to the day of its slaughter and know it had a good life. Yes, it’s more expensive, and yes, we do eat much less meat than we once did, but it’s meat that we don’t have to wonder about or feel guilty for. I would like to raise meat chickens – rabbits are flat out because DH’s mom did rabbit rehab for the Dept. of Fish and Game for many years.

We cannot go on vacation because of our vegetable and animal commitments, which are significantly more than the typical ‘feed the dogs/cats while we’re gone’ scenario. We are out there 7 days a week, rain or shine, doing the chores that keep the place going. How is that not farming? I too read the article you and Gene cite, and I was just sad. Agrifarming has about as much to do with actual farming as present day hospitals have to do with actual nursing and healing.

Methinks someone is a little threatened by the taking back of the word ‘farmer’ and using it in its more traditional sense.

You are an inspiring example Susan. We wouldn’t have a food crisis if more of us were so wise and dedicated. It’s heartening to see so many shared efforts to farm intensively as you are doing, on city lots as well as suburban back yards. You’re so right. Taking back the word “farmer” restores it to the way it was used traditionally. That shouldn’t threaten anyone but fast food franchises.